"Always demand of the Indians what you want, William, that is the secret. Never let them think you fear them. Great things have been effected by a few men well conducted. Who knows what fortune may do for you?" It was the self-same saying with which twenty-four years before he had started to Vincennes. "Here are letters to some of my old friends at St. Louis and Kaskaskia," added the General.
All the negroes were out to weep over York, whom they feared to see no more,—old York and Rose, Nancy and Julia, Jane, Cupid and Harry, from the scattered home at Mulberry Hill.
General Jonathan Clark and Major Croghan were there, the richest men in Kentucky, and General Jonathan's daughters who stitched their samplers now at Mulberry Hill; and Lucy, from Locust Grove, the image of William, "with face almost too strong for a woman," some said. All the city knew her, a miracle of benevolence and duty, and by her side the little son, George Croghan, destined to hand on the renown of his fathers.
William Clark's last word was for Fanny, a widow with children. "It is my desire that she should stay with Lucy at Locust Grove until my return," said the paternal brother, kissing her pale cheek.
"And I want Johnny with me at the Point of Rock," added the lonely General, who, if he loved any one, it was little John O'Fallon, the son of his sister Fanny.
"Bring on your plunder!"
The Kentuckians could be recognised by their call as they helped the bateaux over the rapids and launched them below. George Rogers Clark stood on the Point of Rock, waving a last farewell, watching them down the river.
While Captain Clark went on down the Ohio, and engaged a few men at Fort Massac, Captain Lewis followed the old Vincennes "trace" to Kaskaskia.
In that very September, Sergeant John Ordway, in Russell Bissell's company, was writing home to New Hampshire:
